Goodbye, Streatham

‘Mr.Thrale’s House’, Streatham Park, situated off Tooting Bec Road, facing the common.The house was made famous by the family’s association with Dr.Samuel Johnson, who was a frequent visitor here between 1765 and 1782.

Well, I’m packed and ready to leave Streatham tomorrow morning. Then I’ll be winging my way back to Houston, which is just as rainy as England, only not so cold.

In the meantime, why don’t you look at the Wikipedia entry for the history of Streatham, described there as a ‘multicultural inner London suburb South of Brixton,’ and which had a few worthy visitors during the 1770s:

Not many traces of the fashionable spa-town remained where I was staying. It was also amusing to see that Lord Thurlow, the beetle-browed, bullying, and unlovable attorney beloved by George III, had had an estate there, memorialized now only by an ugly apartment building, Thurlow Towers, down my street.